Apple today released iTunes 12.2 with an updated Music app which includes:
• For You. Get playlist and album recommendations you’ll love, selected just for you based on your musical tastes. The more you listen, the better For You gets.
• New. Discover the best new music, handpicked by our music editors. Explore mixes created just for activities like exercising, or find great handcrafted playlists in a wide variety of genres. With Apple Music, you’ll always have the perfect soundtrack for any occasion.
• Connect. A single place to connect with your favorite artists. See thoughts, photos, music, and videos shared from your favorite artists. You can comment on or love anything an artist has posted, and the artist can respond to you directly.
• Beats 1. Tune in to Beats 1, broadcast live from cities around the globe. Enjoy music, interviews, exclusive radio shows, and the best of what’s going on in the world of music. Beats 1 — worldwide and always on.
• Apple Music Radio. Radio has been completely redesigned. Play from Featured Stations, where our music experts hand select every song you hear. Or, start a new station from any artist or song. In addition, it’s now easy to quickly return to your favorite stations with Recently Played.
• My Music. Find all your music in one place, including iTunes purchases, music you’ve imported from CD, and now songs from Apple Music.
• iTunes Store. The iTunes Store is still the best place to buy your favorite music — one song or album at a time.
iTunes 12.2. is available via Software Update.
SEE ALSO:
iTunes 12.2 missing in action as Apple Music, Beats 1 launch – June 30, 2015
It’s awesome……really nice interface…..great selections and easy to transfer to your playlist……..!!!
Good update. I was expecting (fearing) a more significant change to how iTunes works. I thought the app may not even be called “iTunes” anymore. 🙂
The “old” (library-centric) parts of iTunes are still there and mostly work like before. The non-music parts are unchanged. My iPods still sync, including my ancient 4th gen (hard drive) iPod from 2004. In this respect, the iTunes 11 to 12 update was bigger (more drastic).
Here’s an example of how Apple links the old with the new. On my iTunes music library song list, there is a few field (column) called “Love.” That new column lets me mark songs that I “love” with a heart icon. By doing so, it supposedly changes how the new (Apple Music) parts interact with me. (I just “hearted” all of my songs that I previously rated “5 Star.”) That’s smart, because Apple is putting value in what customers have created over many years in iTunes, not just putting something new and shiny at the front of the store and letting the old things collect dust. Don’t alienate your existing customers… 🙂
Another example is how any new song I find through Apple Music can be added to my existing iTunes library, and it looks and acts like any other song in my iTunes library. Well, except that they can’t be synced to my old-school iPods (understandable limitation since those “Apple Music” songs are “subscribed” and not owned).
The overall iTunes app itself also feels more (as they say) “snappy.”
Putting the “heart” next to songs I love (on my iTunes library song list) seems to work. After sorting by Rating and “hearting” all my songs I previously rated “5 Stars,” the “For You” screen in iTunes now has better suggestions.
What has changed with the “old” (library-centric) parts of iTunes? I’d like to know before downloading it.
Obviously, the little things that link to the “new” (Apple Music) parts of iTunes, such as the column/field with “heart” icon and adding songs (from Apple Music) to your library that are “subscribed” and not owned. Not relevant (as “changes”) if you don’t use them.
One (functional) change took me by surprise when I was experimenting with iTunes Match after the update. If you have iTunes Match turned ON, previously, deleting a song did not delete the song from your library list (because it remained in your iCloud library), unless you “checked the box” in the confirmation dialog telling iTunes to ALSO delete the song from your iCloud library. Now, the confirmation dialog has two choices, Remove Download and Delete Song. Remove Download deletes your local copy but keeps the iCloud copy (song stays on list). Delete Song deletes BOTH copies (song removed from list). I clicked Delete Song (without reading what the new dialog said), and deleted the song completely from iTunes (NOT what I wanted). I had to get the song file out of the Mac’s trash and add it back to my library.
The iTunes Store (where you BUY songs) looks familiar too. If there are any differences, they must be minor. You can still buy songs (instead of streaming them), like before. Apple kept the interfaces for streaming songs and buying songs separate. There are links on the streaming side to the iTunes Store, so you can find and buy a song that you just streamed.
Other than such minor things and the “For You,” “New,” and “Radio,” and “Connect” buttons (for accessing the new Apple Music features), which are on the existing “button bar” that goes across the iTunes window, iTunes 12.2 should seem very similar for existing users. Going from iTunes 11.x to 12.x was a MUCH bigger change in the overall interface. I think Apple did an excellent job of adding all of these new Apple Music features while keeping the overall iTunes “look and feel” familiar.
Thanks for the info. It all sounds good. I haven’t tried Match yet because I had too many tracks but the limit has just been raised to 100000 I think.
That’s the RUMORED plan. However, Apple’s web site still says 25,000. (Purchased songs from iTunes Store do not count toward limit.)
My iTunes library only has about 7000 songs… After adding “subscribed” songs from Apple Music, I suppose it will have more.
I’ve subscribed to iTunes Match since it was offered; I don’t really remember what using iTunes is like without iTunes Match. SO, there may be other changes between new and old iTunes, for users who do not have iTunes Match turned ON.
Oh thanks! I’ve been reading too fast, clearly: I shall have to tune my news antennae.
Warning. If you turn on the iCloud Music Library it may destroy all your hard built playlists.
I don’t really trust Syncing much at all. Most of my stuff has been done manually and I don’t think to this day you can add by Syncing without erasing everything. I think it’s time to move past being paranoid about music files and let sleeping files lie and not die.
Got my iTunes 12.1.2 back with my playlist thanks to Time Machine Recovery. Finally back in manual control of my music again. As far as I’m concerned 12.2 and Apple Music is a dangerous sick joke.😖😩😰😱
Is it as dangerous and sick a joke as your little girl fetish with emoticons? Grow up Nancy.
And you probably drive around in a car with square wheels…
Embrace change and open your mind.
I embraced change Tuesday morning and nearly lost 20 years of playlist building.😖 why didn’t you read my warning?
This might be a fix: http://appleinsider.com/articles/15/06/30/how-to-hide-the-apple-music-subscription-service-get-back-playlists-parent-menu-in-ios-84
Thank you very much sir.👍
Is the option to turn on the iCloud Music Library presented at startup?
Yes it is. But even though I didn’t turn it on there, because I had turned it on on my 8.4 iPad Tuesday morning right after I signed up for Apple Music, all my thousands of playlists were gone anyway.
Any advice on getting lyrics running as I listen?
Is this something you could do previously? I don’t think iTunes has such a feature. You can show lyrics, if the metadata for a song has the lyrics embedded (most do not unless you added them), on the song’s “Get Info” window Lyrics tab. But it’s not like some music videos on YouTube that show the lyrics as the song is played.
On Spotify, I have a “Lyrics” tab at the biottom of the screen – play a song and click on the button and pretso – the lyrics scroll upwards.
It’s using Musixmatch which can be downloaded for Spotify.
No such feature in iTunes. You can make suggestion to Apple here:
https://www.apple.com/feedback/
Get the app Lyrikos. It also tries to find lyrics for a song and add them if you don’t have them already. It’s pretty good, though not perfect.
Does the new iTunes still beach ball every time I go to select something?
You should be more specific, but when I select a song, there is no beachball. I did not have that problem in any previous version of iTunes either… 🙂
So far, I am not a fan…
The new version of iTunes is pretty good and I like the integration between my music and the streaming music. The streaming music sits right along side my purchased music and the move from one to the other is seamless. I also like the suggested music on the right side of each artist page and the ability to tab between ‘My Music’ and ‘All Music’ on individual artist pages to see what they have released that I don’t own. The music videos, radio and Connect are more of a novelty for me and not something I care about or will ever revisit. So, great use of the Desktop app, but I only listen to about 10% of my music through my computer and the iphone app is a mess.
After the first sync with my iPhone, it went through and changed all of my artwork to reflect what is on the iTunes Store and completely dumped any artwork for artists that aren’t found. A streaming service shouldn’t have any ability to alter my purchased/ripped music (especially without authorization). Also, the playlists that I made of streaming music on 12.2 didn’t sync at all. I changed some settings in iTunes 12.2 and got the streaming playlists to sync, but they’re empty. Also, changing the setting made it so that I can’t pick&choose what playlists sync to my phone and which one’s don’t. Lastly, it set the ‘My Music’ tab all the way to the right and defaults to the ‘For You’ tab when first opened. I’ll spend 99% of my time in the ‘My Music’ section and it should be the tab that is initially opened. The other stuff should be navigated to, not defaulted to.
I’m going to give it the three months, but I have a feeling that I’m going to do more harm than good to my purchased/ripped music and personal playlists. Spotify might not be integrated, but if this is integration, then I am happy to go back.
In Account->View Apple ID->Subscriptions->Manage you can turn off the auto renewal switch right now and still retain the free 3 month trial ’til September 30 without being charged anything at the end.
Really like it…easy transition, everything works.
Anyone know how to change radio station names in iTunes 12.2? (!)
Clicking on Beats 1 disables airplay in iTunes and the airplay icon disappears. The only way I can find to get it back is to go to System Preferences -> Sound and choose an airplay device (such as an airport express hooked to speakers) as your output device. Only 1 output device selection is possible. If you are playing music in your library, the airplay icon returns to iTunes and you can choose multiple outputs. This seems to become disabled only when using Beats 1. So, if you are using your computer to do work and need work-related computer sounds to come from the computer speakers while having Beats 1 playing from airplay speakers, it seems you are out of luck for now…
iTunes 12.2 keeps changing the ratings of my songs. I change them back and a few minutes later I find they have been changed again. How do I stop this?